Purity Ring

A Miley Cyrus adaptation

This song is an adaptation of the Miley Cyrus song called Golden G String. Her original lyrics are here.

Lyrics

I woke up in my own skin and
I was thinking about my life
And the questions made more questions
Staring out into the night

Yes, I've worn the purity ring
In my heart and in my my mind
I did not think that God would love me
unless I did it right

Oh, that's just the world that we're livin' in
Where all our feelings & thoughts are counted as sin
You dare to call me crazy, have you looked around this place?
I should walk away
I should walk away
I cannot stay

There are layers to this body
Primal sex and primal shame
They told me I should cover it
And I promised to obey

I was trying to hide my power
Still I'm trying to work it out
At least I give my therapist
something we can talk about

Oh, that's just the world that we're livin' in
Where all our feelings & thoughts are counted as sin
You dare to call me crazy, have you looked around this place?
I should walk away
I should walk away
I cannot stay

So the mad man's in the big chair
And his heart's an iron vault
He says "If you can't be perfect,
sonny, it must be your fault"
We all focus on the sinners
And get blinded by our shame
Maybe thinking that we’re worthy is a bit too much to claim

Oh, that's just the world that we're livin' in
Where all our feelings & thoughts are counted as sin
You dare to call me crazy, have you looked around this place?
I should walk away
I should walk away
I cannot stay

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Your reflections

What comes up for you as you hear this?

Perhaps you have a journey that is similar or at least connected — notice what parts feel like they give voice to your own experience.

Have you been part of a system or culture that makes you doubt your own worthiness?

Have you made the choice to persist and participate, believing it’s good for you?

Have you made the choice to leave or walk away, recognizing the harm?

Whether not you wore a literal “purity ring,” in what ways does the pursuit of perfectionism and high standards create an iron grip around you?

What would it be like to realize you don’t have to meet that standard?

Metaphorically, what layers of the expectations of others can you strip off to return to your own skin?

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My story

When I first heard the song “Golden G String” by Miley Cyrus in November 2020, I sensed a connection to it, like opposite sides of the same coin. Her song is a reflection on her own journey, naming experience in an industry dominated by the “old boys.” After naming the dysfunction and toxicity in the system, in the end, she decides to stay and be a force for positive change.

At the time I heard it, I was involved in a leadership in a spiritual community, and yet having significant challenges staying. My own inner world was expanding and changing in response to both social issues and personal growth, and I couldn’t see the same acknowledgement or awareness in my community. It created a great deal of dissonance for me. I was recognizing the destructive role of purity culture on me in my lifetime, and yet it was as if the church and religious systems that created it were unrepentant, unaware, and still insistent on perpetuating the same harm. What does it do to persist in propping up a system that actually hurt you, and hurts other people?

This song helped me get through that period of time. I wrote this adaptation, and month by month, week by week, play by play, would revisit line after line and experience a new insight.

Miley has chosen the path of staying within the system to reform it by reclaiming her own self-expression. She is choosing vulnerability-by-choice instead by exploitation. She has named the power dynamics, and the nature of the unwinnable game. Her choice, as the song ends, is to say “I think I’ll stay.”

I’ve tried every version of ending this song. I’ve sung “I think I’ll stay” while actively in a position of leadership, advocating for change, and finding instead folks with their minds and hearts fully committed to maintaining the current system. And I’ve found it to be a thing I cannot say.

It helped me get clear on naming the patterns of abusive thought that are within the system — that are not the people themselves, but the frames we’re within.

It helped me get clear on my own need to walk away, instead of allowing harmful teaching to continue to hurt me.

The opening line, adapted from Miley’s “I woke up in Montecito,” I was stuck on for a while. I tried, “I woke up in 2020”…”in deconstruction”…”in the master bedroom” — stuck on what words would fit her original phrasing and my own story.

In the end, I landed on “my own skin.” Because that’s what this is — a coming home to one’s self, one’s own body. My own agency and self-hood, after a lifetime of living out the expectations and needs other an external system. The very opening lines are the thesis, now: to strip off the expectations of others and return to my own skin.

The system only changes when its people change.
Its people can only change when they heal.
And healing, for me, can’t come from within the system — it can only come from within.